Atonement

As his head cleared, he remembered why he wasn’t down south in the desert. He let the curtain fall and turned, tempted to go back to bed. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and it would be dangerous to stay here any longer.

He moved into the bathroom, turned on the shower and while he waited for the water to warm, he relieved himself in the toilet. It was after he’d showered that he’d accidentally seen himself in the mirror over the sink. He’d known he probably looked the way he felt—terrible. But still, the image had been shocking.

A couple weeks’ growth of sandy-blond beard gave him a homeless appearance. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a haircut, as he ran his fingers through the curls at his neck. How long had it been since he’d even looked at himself in a mirror?

He let out a bitter laugh at the thought. He couldn’t even face himself, and with good reason. Forcing himself, he locked eyes with his image. They really were windows into the soul. What he saw broke his heart.

The irony didn’t escape him. Here he was trying so hard to stay alive, and part of him had already died. Those eyes looking out at him were those of a corpse.

“There is a faster way to kill yourself if you’re interested,” the barmaid had told him last night when he’d asked her to just leave the whiskey bottle. “I would think a cowboy like you would own a gun. Can’t afford a bullet?”

He’d chuckled. What did she know? Maybe he had a good reason to drink himself to death. That thought had made him take a drink straight from the bottle last night. But after that, he’d lost his taste for it and had left, angry and sick at heart.

Now he dressed and opened the motel room door, telling himself that he needed to pick up a razor and some shaving cream before the next motel. Maybe a pair of scissors to trim his hair.

His old pickup was capped with snow and now the only rig left in the motel lot. He glanced out, checking the street. He thought of that barmaid again. If only he could drink himself to death. He doubted he could stay alive long enough, though, for the booze to kill him.

Every morning he woke with the same thought. Things could be worse. A lot worse. Then he would remember what was at stake. The only way things could be worse was if he failed.

That thought usually brought back the vivid memory of being in a car, racing toward an abyss and a fiery death at over eighty miles an hour in the desert. Unconsciously he checked to make sure the knife was still in his pocket. His lucky knife, he called it since escaping that car. Bailing out of it would probably have killed him if he hadn’t been drunk and landed in sand. He’d rolled, ending up against a cactus. He was still pulling spines out of his backside almost a year later.

But that had been a whole lot better than what had happened to Buck Morgan, he reminded himself.

He went out to the pickup, made a swipe at the deep snow on the windshield, all the time watching the street. He probably wouldn’t even recognize the men who’d been paid to find him and kill him. He likely wouldn’t see them coming. Some days he wondered why he even bothered. He’d surely mess this up, too. Wouldn’t it be easier just to end this once and for all?

But then he thought of Tessa and was reminded of why he was doing this.

The street was still quiet in this part of Colorado. All the small mountain towns looked alike. The moment you drove out past the city-limits sign, there was nothing but miles of sagebrush and antelope until the next little burg.

It will be over soon, he thought as he went back inside the motel, picked up his duffel bag, then, making sure he hadn’t left anything behind, went out and started his truck.

His pistol was loaded, stuck in his waistband under his shirt and jacket, reminding him he wasn’t just the hunted, but was also the hunter. As he pulled away from the motel, he looked around for a store and an internet café.

Survival had now come down to only a matter of which of them found their prey first.

* * *

DILLON SEEMED LOST in thought as they left the ranch. Tessa could see that he was taking the news about Ethan maybe even harder than she was. She felt like such a fool. She’d actually thought that Ethan had panicked about marriage and fatherhood and that he’d only taken her money because...

Because he never had any of his own. What had he done with the money he’d made from his construction job? He’d often had a few beers at the local bar after work, but other than that he didn’t spend much. He’d given her a little to help with the rent after he’d moved in, and had promised her more when he could afford it.

What had happened to whatever money the three men had stolen from Halbrook Truman’s safe? For that matter, what had happened to the man’s fiancée?

“What do you think Ethan took from back there?” Tessa asked as they drove back toward Wisdom.

Dillon shook his head.

“Seems that if it was money, Halbrook would have jumped at the offer you made to repay it.”

“Does seem that way. I suspect this is less about what they took and more about the man’s pride.”

She couldn’t argue that.

“Tell me more about this rifle Ethan was looking at online,” he said.

“It was popular during the Civil War, a Henry .44-caliber rimfire, lever-action, breech-loading rifle.”

He glanced over at her. “You know a lot about rifles, do you?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Only because Ethan seemed so interested in this particular one. Are you thinking one of them was what Ethan helped steal from Halbrook Truman? But why, if Ethan was in on taking the rifle, would he be looking for it online?”

“I was just thinking about that. If an antique rifle was what they took, my guess is that someone else has it. Maybe Luke double-crossed him and he’s thinking Luke will try to sell it online. But we don’t even know if there is any connection between Halbrook and this rifle. That model definitely isn’t rare.”

“No, it isn’t,” she agreed. “I checked. Nine hundred of them were manufactured between the summer and October of 1862. By 1864, production had peaked to 290 a month. By the time production ended in 1866, approximately fourteen thousand had been manufactured.”

He laughed. “You do your homework.”

“The thing is, though, one in excellent condition can bring in a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Not peanuts, and yet not enough to kill someone over—especially if you were already rich.”

Dillon nodded. “Except that Halbrook Truman is angry and wants his property back. We don’t know that this rifle Ethan was looking for has anything to do with him or what was taken from him. Or that Halbrook had anything to do with why Ethan has pretended to be dead for a year. But it does make me wonder.”

The town of Wisdom appeared again on the horizon.

“I was thinking we’d stop at that café we saw in town and have something to eat.” He looked over at her. “You need to take care of yourself and my niece.”

She smiled, touched by his concern. “I’m not upset about what he said about Ethan.”

“Still, I’m sorry my brother—”

“You aren’t your brother’s keeper.”

He laughed and pushed back his hat to rub his forehead with his free hand as he drove. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I always tried to protect him.” He shook his head.

“Protect him?” She saw Dillon swallow.

“Our dad. He had this idea that you had to break the spirit of a wild horse—or a wild boy. I stepped between them enough times to take the brunt of it, but—”

“You were a boy yourself.”

Dillon looked away. “Ethan was always...too...tender. I think that’s why the old man went after him instead of me. Ethan felt things too strongly. It made him seem—well, at least in our father’s eyes—weak. The old man thought he could toughen him up. Instead...”

“Ethan’s a man now, capable of making his own choices in life,” she said firmly. “Just because he might have gotten a raw deal as a kid, he doesn’t get to spend his life blaming his behavior on that.”

Dillon glanced over at her, no doubt surprised by the fierceness of her words. “Was your childhood—”

“Fine. It was just fine.” His sudden compassion made her want to bite back her heated response. She looked away and was grateful he didn’t push the subject.

The café was small and rustic, like a lot of cafés she’d seen off the beaten path in Montana. Over lunch they talked about the magnificent country outside the café window. It was spectacular, especially in contrast to the desert of Southern California. As Tessa listened to Dillon talk, she could hear his love for this state. That love warmed her. She’d always longed for a place with deep roots but had never had it. Ethan had told her once that he’d left home at eighteen and professed he preferred to be rootless. So unlike his twin, who had planted obvious roots here.